A Step to Greatness

Authors Note: Hi people! I don't own Naruto alright. And the story takes place some 6 years afterwards the return of Naruto from the training with Jiraiya. So he would be 21 years of age in this story.

This fiction of Naruto is also inspired by the fic. entitled Behind the Mask by: refused. I just want to let you know, if you're still hanging out there, that i love the fic you made of Naruto. It's one of my all time faves.

Chapter 1: The Scout

A jungle protected by the dark shades of its verdant leaves and gigantic trees with little sunlight to spare for the ground beneath the trees. The surroundings were cloth by a thick wall of humid air—Southern part of the Fire country.

3 men made their way carefully on a long perilous trail pausing now then for possible infiltrators. Ahead of this group, there was a tall man with a dirty white mask; black leather jacket, which has a lot of pouches and a tattoo of the Konoha symbol on his right arm. Behind him were to others wearing just like he does except for the mask as they differ from one another. They were following his lead and instructions. But of this group, the man that trails in the middle was the most prominent one.

The man that trails in the middle was called Uzumaki Nartuo. He was not that big but he was muscular, as one may associate with an athlete in his early 20's. But what made him prominent was his long bushy blond hair. If it weren't for his mask his hair would cover his face. Yet, despite his hair being bushy, it is evident that it was well trimmed. Catchy. One may wonder why he was promoted to the ranks that specialize in stealth and assassinations. But none can question his abilities, as he was able to establish himself as the rank's top assassin. It was his "to hell and back" experiences that redefined his image from being a noisy kid to a slicky ninja that he is now.

The head of the group stopped behind one the big trees in the forest. He motioned his team to stop in a distance and pointed the direction where they should look at. Amazing it is for this group of men, to be able to see through the dark shades of the forest and spot a hiding ninja 300 meters away from them. Yet, with their keen sense of sight, it was impossible for them to distinguish from that distance which village the ninja came from. He motioned Naruto to go nearer and confirm the ninja's origin and the other to stay with him to provide Naruto some cover in case the approach will fail.

Naruto approached the ninja in silence. Moving from one branch to another, he skillfully covered his chakra presence. A skill he mastered with his one time teacher the pervert hermit, Jiraiya. The reward of peeping public hot springs as one may say. Naruto reached the 50-meter mark, the distance that limits him from hiding his chakra. Further than that will blow his cover if it's not hidden below 10 percent. Unfortunately Naruto does not have the luxury of hiding is chakra below that level or else the other chakra in him will emerge and it will be a lot harder to conceal. He leaned on one of the trees and steals a look to view the ninja's symbol. To his dismay, his position cannot help him complete his order. He needed to change position, to have a clear view of it. But when he was about to move the ninja turned to look towards his direction. Quickly, Naruto hid his face before the ninja could see him. He controlled his heavy breathing as not to arouse suspicion of the target ninja. He was confident that the ninja failed to see him, so he peeked again, but this time the ninja was out of his line of sight. But he saw him in his right peripheral view thrusting a kunai towards his head. Naruto swiftly evaded the attack and took a kunai to parry the coming shurikens. After parrying, Naruto had to evade a kick aimed towards his head. This ninja is sure a close combat type, he thought about it. In a matter of seconds, the ninja hurled a series of combos at him, which he efficiently evaded and parried. Naruto, caught one of the ninjas arm and skillfully parried it, stopping the ninja from the attacks. When he saw the ninja losing his balance, Naruto quickly grabbed his neck from the back and place his kunai on the Ninja's throat, yet in an instant then Ninja became a log. Naruto cursed beneath his breath as performed a seal and shadow clone appeared behind him just in time to block the driving kunai of the enemy and attached a very small seal on the ninjas body. Naruto flung himself upward and turn to threw a couple of shurinkens just to divert the enemy's attention from his main attack, the rasengan, a spiral bullet made of pure chakra or energy. As Naruto landed, he immediately vanished into thin air and appear right in front of the enemy and thrust his rasengan right into the opponents stomach, which sent the ninja flying a couple of meters away.

The other Anbus came just in time to stop the ninja from flying any farther. They can tell from the catch through the impact that Naruto held back some of the power so as not to inflict more damage than needed to.

The captain of the squad kneeled before the fallen ninja to check on him. At the back of his mind, he hoped that this ninja should not be from Orochimaru. Although he himself knew already, that there were movements again from the Oro unto his village. He slowly reached for the bandana that fell beside the fallen ninja. Hoping against all odds, the symbol bore the mark of a Sound—sound ninja.

"Shit," he looked at his two subordinates knowing well what is to come their way.

Naruto cursed behind the mask. His anger filled his clear head as he recalled the day he faced Oro inside his friend's body. He had the chance to finish him off with Jiraiya's help. But he failed to he saw as his other comrades who were badly injured and needed a quick evacuation which he was capable to provide, given the situation they were in. Moreover, he was double minded at that time of hurting his friend's body, believing that somewhere inside; behind the soul that claimed his friend's body, his friend is still there.

"Fox 2," his leader called Naruto indicating his number and the identity of the mask they wore as a team. "You deliver this body to the village for interrogation. We will cover your trail perhaps there are still others in this vicinity.

"Yes sir," Naruto complied. He performed a summoning technique, calling forth his old friend.

A puff of thick smog filled an area and a big red toad came into view as the smog got cleared away. Gamakichi have grown too. His red body has become big and muscular. Even though he was not as big as his father yet, but he sure was big enough to carry two fully grown male on his back. Like his father, his body bore scars from the countless battles he had alongside Naruto. The most perceptible scar was the scar on his right arm, which was cause by the battle he and Naruto had with one of the dangerous S class criminal. His sword was different of his fathers, it was a little longer, a black ninjato, which according to him is cooler to use than his father's katakana.

"Hey, Naruto. Watssup," was the greeting of this red massive giant frog.

Naruto could not help himself but to amaze how these frogs can grow big so much in short span of time. However, his amusing was brief as he remembered his captain gave him another order.

"Hey, Gamakich. Can you help me carry this bastard to the village? I mean I could carry him alone, but I also know that we can move faster if you carry him," Naruto explained, pointing at the unconscious sound ninja behind him.

Gamakichi thought for a moment rubbing his chin with his webbed hand. He was frustrated of how belittled he had become. He is a warrior toad; son of the boss toad-no less, which makes him prince of some sort; and now he has to do some delivery work.

"Hey, Naruto what do you think of me," his voice clearly expressed his frustration coupled with annoyance of the requested task.

"What do you mean…Oh com'on Gama!" Naruto exclaimed, as he understood the words behind the voice of the toad.

"I requested you this job because I know you are strong and fast. With you carrying this one, we could be out of here in no time and report this incident to the Hokage and do the necessary course of actions. You are the hero here, don't you see that," Naruto tried so hard to enlighten his summoned buddy with the best encouraging words he can muster out of his unpopular eloquence. At the back of his mind though, he was pest of Gamabunta for rubbing off some of his negative attitude to his son. Well, it runs in the blood after all.

Gamakichi, thrilled with the thought of being the hero as Naruto have always acknowledged him after every hard won battle in the past agreed and engrossed himself. He quickly threw his long, sticky, fat tongue, toward this sound ninja and wrapped with it before slinging him to his back.

"Alright then, what are you waiting for? Damn, Naruto, you're always slow," he garbled.

Entertained by the thought of his unexpected persuading abilities, Naruto snubbed the last comments of Gamakichi. He quickly moved his feet to catch up with speedy toad leaving his teammates do their job.

Minutes later after Naruto and the toad left, his other teammates went to another direction. They trailed back to where they spotted the sound ninja glancing and pausing checking, marking some areas; left and right as they always do when in search of a missing-missing nins. They are Anbu indeed experts in this line of work. After what seemed hours, then captain signaled his subordinate to stop. As captain, he is given the full trust of his teammates and everything he commands must be followed. Such authority is given only to those who have proven to be skilled and cunning over all other Anbu.

"Fox 3," he called out. His voice was firm and always commanding even it the words are whispered.

Fox 3 approached nearer to him whensuddenly the captain slash a kunai to his throat. Not expecting this attack from his trusted captain he was left defenseless like sheep brought into the slaughter. He tried to stop the spouting river of blood with his hands. Choking but with no air to choke out, slowly his vision blurred; he felt his life was fading away towards the eternal abyss. He tried so hard to feel alive, but reality slowly overcame his hope and courage—death has come and he has no other choice but succumb to its calling. He died. A quick death—undeniably.

The captain picked up his lifeless subordinate, if ever he acknowledged him to be one, and carry him over his shoulder. The strength of this person, to be able to carry a lifeless body, which is twice heavier than when it is alive, is definitely remarkable. He carried him like he was just picking up his luggage and leaped from one branch to another disappearing into the distance.

At the same time or after hours to say the most, Naruto reached the colossal southern gate of Konoha. The speed they took was something no ordinary ninja below the level of jounin can accomplish. Although Naruto did not pull it off with extracting more effort and curses along the way, he had to extract some or a small amount of chakra from the monster inside him to propel him faster and managed to keep up with Gamakichi or at least surpass him for a fraction of a second. Sweats were dropping heavily from his temple, through his whiskers and down to the ground making a small muck out from the ground. He breathed heavily behind his mask, an evidence of an energy pouring out from his body. His warm breath that was hindered by his mask from coming out tempted him to take it off but then halted after realizing what he was about to do. He instead turned to look back on his trail, hoping that his teammates were doing just fine. He tapped Gamakichi who landed beside him.

"I can take it from here Gama. Thank you. I shall mention your feat again in my report," he said.

Gamakichi let go of the Sound nin into the ground. He made a slight bow to Naruto and bade him good-bye before puffing himself out of sight.

Naruto whistled hard and loud to call out the messenger hawk. After a whistle, the hawk came flying down from the sky. It depicted sheer power and splendor with its wings spreading wide in the skies before it perched on Naruto's forearm. Its sheer weight was overwhelming for a non-shinobi, but for the likes of Naruto, it was ordinary.

"How are you today," Naruto greeted it with a casual stroke.

The hawk spread it wings wide once again in response to the greeting. Naruto understood the hawk's reaction then he tied a message to one of its feet.

"This is for Special Jounin Morino Ibiki. Bring it to him immediately," he finished tying.

The bird flew in an instant leaving some of its dark shaded brown feathers falling to the ground.

"Alright stranger, it's you and me again," he turned to speak to the still unconscious ninja. Naruto picked him up and carried him over his shoulder towards the Konoha hospital.

Hours had passed and the creatures of the night began their routine choir. Crickets singing in the soprano, the owls hooted on the bass, the frogs croaked on the tenor and howling of the flirting street dogs echoed on their alto. Yet the sound nin still did show any sign of consciousness. Naruto was getting restless despite being accustomed to the ambiance of a hospital as he himself has a share of countless medical attention from the same hospital. He walked back and forth from the patient's bed to the door wondering if he really had controlled the rasengan before it crashed into this now motionless body. Tired of walking back and forth he took a sit and intercrossed his fingers behind his head and stared once again at the ninja's face.

Much to Naruto's surprise when the sound nin's mask was taken off, at the clinic, he did not expect to see such a beautiful face of a young woman. She had long layered brown hair, smooth silky face, and pinkish lips that looked so lovely to kiss. Only the color of the eyes escaped Naruto's drooling since it was closed

Staring at the beautiful face did not help Naruto's growing restlessness. Conversely, it added more because he regretted hurting such beauty with a powerful jutsu of his. Als,o he was so bothered of the fact that such beautiful face is part of Oro's devious plans. If Naruto does not know

"Damn, what's keeping him so long," he complained. "If he wont come within 5 mins at the most, I'm gonna… gonna…" Naruto thought what he would do if he has to wait for 5 more mins but his wait ended even before he could decide what to do, much to his luck.

Ibiki opened the door slowly as if he was to visit a sick friend of his. He still wears his long black trench coat and the bandana over his head, which the covers scars beyond compare. Come to think of it, no one else in Konoha has ever received so many scars as he did. Rumors had it that during his Anbu days, he was once got caught and interrogated, and because of his stubbornness not sell out any valuable information, he was tortured to death. Luckily for him, he managed to get away with it. However, despite his unchanging way of clothing, his face showed aging. There were slight, small wrinkles on his face, especially on the side of his forehead. But even though he got features like this, still, he looked strong and inept. As a matter of fact he's still a force to be reckoned with. He greeted the Anbu with a nod and motioned him not stand up from his seat, as he did not recognize him to be Naruto because of the mask.

"So, what's the story," he inquired looking at the beautiful face that lay on the bed. He himself was astonished to see a beautiful lady on Oro's side. But he hid that astonishment pretty well with his ever-calm voice and cold stares.

Naruto narrated to him, by details, all that had transpired, from the start of their patrol down to the incident of capturing the sound nin. Then after, he was quite sure he said it all.

"So that's all in it. Permission to be dismissed, sir I got to report this to the Hokage and checked on my team if they have already arrived," Naruto stood up from his sit and waited to be dismissed

"You might want to do that first thing in the morning tommorow. It's already late, you know. And oh, for the record, I'll be transferring her after you leave this room. Kindly include that in your report," Ibiki said before dismissing the Anbu.

Naruto puffed his way out to the hospital's gate and decided just to walk home. While on walking on his way home he wondered if his team was okay. He hasn't heard news. But he also knew that this is not the first time. This is their strategy as team. But somehow, he was bothered in the inside. Too tired and sleepy to worry himself with that, he shoved down the anxiety and made his way to his apartment on the 3rd floo and called it a day.

Author's Note: Please feel free to review. I welcome any comments and suggestion from you guys. I will also greatly appreciate it.